The show was pretty quiet (as expected on Friday) and we were busy with setup / first day hijinks but it was an inspiring day at the show all the same.

With the bustle of the familiar professional names and faces of the fly fishing industry filling the pre-opening halls, we assembled the booth in good time thanks to Dave Fix's cordless drivers and carpenter's tricks, not to mention a thorough labelling of each pc for the next show. Quentin, JFBasser, Dfix and I got things together in timely fashion before the doors opened, even sat down for a minute before people started to show up. The booth design we did last year still looks good Roop, Hawkeye, JimW and Rich!

Quentin, who had been collecting flies from members and providing insights into raffle strategies, really came through for us. He and Dble Haul assembled an impressive array of flies for the raffles, which even on a slow day generated a good response to help us dig out of the hole created by the booth fee a little. To all of you who donated flies, you will be very impressed with what is representing us at the raffle table, thanks to all of you!

Then striblue showed up with the motherlode of flies of every shape and color, then proceeded to team up with Dave Fix to tie more to open the show with tying demonstrations. John's flies were a hit as you might expect, I heard a rumor he was getting his own booth next year to sell flies ;) I hope not, we need that display!

Dble Haul, Eddie, and Slinger joined in to lend a hand and the booth was getting busy when Mark Doogue and Mike Braccia popped over with an offering to the booth that will floor you when you see it - an incredible banner that in my opinion is the best looking banner at the whole show. Mark, what can we say but THANK YOU!

John Desjardins came to help out and offer his tying tools to the station just as Rich Soriano needed vises to give a tying class. Things were going so smoothly I even got to try the new Sage 8wt 4pc, su-weet but boy did I get tangled up in all that running line after months of not casting a single hander at all. I am bringing a stripping basket Sat/Sun! ;)

It was great seeing familiar faces like Bob Pink Jr, Doug B, Reno, Art Sawayer stopped by to say hello as did many countless others.

It's tomorrow and I am exhausted, but we should all extend a thank you whether we live in Boston, Seattle, the Midwest, Florida, British Isles, or anywhere in the flyfishing forum world to everyone who gave their time, creativity, energy and care to contribute to OUR cause today as they will tomorrow and Sunday.

Two things I forgot to do today in the craziness and ask everyone who lives in the area and is visiting this show to please do tomorrow:

- thank our sponsors in person
- talk about the things we do for others, like Big Brother Day
- talk about the things we do to savor the sport, like conclaves

In addition to selling raffle tickets and filling the pro tying sessions, which is also very important.

We've only just taken the first step for the 2003 season - those of us who are at the booth will do our best to make tomorrow and Sunday the best it can be to get the momentum going for the best year ever!